Why not reduce the amount of plastic bags you pick up on your rounds this year whilst out christmas shopping and use one of Katharine Hamnett’s must have oversized organic cotton ‘Love’ shoppers.www.ethicalsuperstore.co.uk 

Lush, the beauty high street chain that prides itself on the use of natural ingredients and minimal packaging now promotes not using SLS (sodium lauryl sulfate) in its solid shampoo’s! So why is sodium lauryl sulfate so dangerous? The sodium lauryl sulfate in our soaps is exactly the same as you would find in a car wash or even a garage, where it is used to degrease car engines. In the same way as it dissolves the grease on car engines, sodium lauryl sulfate also dissolves the oils on your skin, which in can cause a drying effect.  More worryingly once it has been absorbed, one of the main effects of SLS is to mimic the activity of the hormone Oestrogen and may be responsible for a variety of health problems from PMS, menopausal symptoms to dropping in male fertility and increasing female cancers such as breast cancers!  

The Oeko-Tex website reports that the Oeko-Tex standard 100 label is gaining more ground in the US consumer market. The Oeko-Tex Association acknowledged this trend by holding its annual meeting in New York at the end of October 2007, along with an exhibition of innovative Oeko-Tex certified products at the Fashion Institute of Technology.  The Association has been observing a growing demand for certified products on the American continent where, in the last year alone, the number of certificates issued rose by 41%.  From the beginning of next year, the Oeko-Tex system will also cover the test parameters relevant for textiles that the American Apparel and Footwear Association (AAFA) has fixed in its restricted substances list (RSL).